Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Best of the Marvel Masterworks Sale, Plus Image and Dynamite

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we look at the best of the Marvel Masterworks sale plus holiday sales from Image and Dynamite.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

We’re in the home stretch for the holiday sale season and this time out, we’ll be looking at a couple sales that dropped a little later than the rest. (OK, technically the Image sale had been up… but the discounts took several days to show up on the listing.) But first, let’s have a look at the cream of the crop for our favorite sale of the year.

The Best of the Marvel Masterworks Sale

As you may recall, The Marvel Masterworks Sale runs through Monday, 1/2. $0.99 for V.1’s and $1.99 for V.2+.

There are bargains and there are bargains. Let’s have a look at what the best volumes are, both for stories contained and page count – because a few of these books are as big as the Epic Collections.

I Like Big Page Counts

Masterworks with 400+ pages!

  • Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks Vol. 22 – 410 pages – Roger Stern / John Romita, Jr. era, including THAT Juggernaut story
  • Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks Vol. 23 – 468 pages – Roger Stern / John Romita, Jr. era… and the Hobgoblin debuts in this volume
  • Champions Masterworks Vol. 1 – 460 pages – The whole ’70s series + crossovers – Bill Mantlo/Tony Isabella/George Tuska/John Byrne and others.
  • Doctor Strange Masterworks Vol. 10 – 394 pages (close enough) – Roger Stern/Paul Smith (and the Doctor Strange vs. Dracula sequence)
  • Killraven Masterworks Vol. 1 – 471 pages – Don McGregor / P. Craig Russell – the entire Amazing Adventures run plus the OGN follow up… for a lousy $0.99
  • Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 9 – 471 pages – OK, get this line-up: Chris Claremont writing all of… Uncanny X-Men w/ Paul Smith; the God Loves, Man Kills OGN w/ Brent Anderson and the original Wolverine mini-series w/ Frank Miller.
  • Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 10 – 458 pages – the beginning of the Claremont/John Romita, Jr. era with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and Morlocks, plus the Magik mini-series w/ John Buscema
  • Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 11 – 457 pages – Claremont writing: X-Men with John Romita, Jr. (including the Kulan Gath issues), X-Men/Alpha Flight with Paul Smith and Kitty Pride & Wolverine with Al Milgrim
  • Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 12 – 466 pages – Claremont writes X-Men w/ John Romita, Jr. (culminating in the trial of Magneto and the end of a big arc); the “Asgardian Wars” crossover with New Mutants w/Art Adams; and then Dave Cockrum’s Nightcrawler mini.
  • Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 13 – 449 pages – Claremont & John Romita, Jr. on X-Men, plus and Ann Nocenti and Art Adams on Longshot.
  • Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 14 – 485 pages – Enter the Mutant Massacre, plus Psylocke joins the X-verse in New Mutants and Fantastic Four Vs. X-Men.

Best of the $0.99 V.1’s

Other notable runs (that aren’t Lee/Kirby, since those go without saying).

We’ll link to the first volume in the set on these.

  • Avengers V. 10 – 18; V. 10 is the Kree/Skrull War. V.11 starts the Englehart run through V.15. V. 16 & V.17 are the Jim Shooter run w/ George Perez & John Byrne; V. 18 is David Michelinie/John Byrne -a prime chunk of Avengers
  • Captain America V. 7 – 11; V.7-9 is the classic Steve Englehart/ (mostly) Sal Buscema run with the Secret Empire, the Red Skull and a snake of an ad man. V.10-11 is Jack Kirby’s return and V.10’s Madbomb is more relevant today than it should be.
  • Captain Marvel V.3 -4; V. 3 is Jim Starlin’s run, which is the first Thanos arc. Utter classic. V.4 is the half-forgotten, yet quite entertaining Steve Englehart/Al Milgrom run.
  • Daredevil V. 15-16; Frank Miller’s first run. (V. 14 ends with the first issue he drew, but it’s not particularly connected to the rest of the run.)
  • Defenders V. 3-5The inspired strangeness of Steve Gerber’s run. Headmen! Elf With a Gun!
  • Doctor Strange V.5-10; Once Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner show up the 70s and 80s were a strong time for Doctor Strange. Consistently A-list writers and artists. Almost amazingly so for a bi-monthly title.
  • Fantastic Four V. 21-23The John Byrne era in thick slices
  • Iron Man V.5-7; The meat of Archie Goodwin’s Iron Man run with Gene Colan and George Tuska
  • Iron Man V. 13-14 – V. 13 has David Michelinie, Bob Layton and John Romita, Jr. arrive. The start with “Demon in a Bottle,” the famous arc, but Iron Man is very good for a long time, starting here.
  • Marvel Two-In-One V. 5-6; In V.5 Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio arrive for a fun run that’s not always remembered. George Perez and Ron Wilson handle most of the art. “Project Pegasus” and “The Serpent Crown Affair” are two of the major arcs.
  • Sub-Mariner V. 7 – Something different? Namor’s creator, Bill Everett returns to his creation as writer/artist.
  • Warlock V. 2 – Jim Starlin’s first run on Adam Warlock, complete in one volume. A continuation of his Captain Marvel run, Thanos is back and this one really lays the groundwork for the eventual Infinity Gauntlet.

There’s a ton more to the sale, including the more usual suspects… but we think the above will keep you out of trouble on a budget.

Defenders Masterworks   Black Panther Masterworks   Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks

Image Stuffs the Stocking

The Image Holiday Sale runs through Monday, 1/2.

This looks to us like a line-wide (or nearly line-wide… is Sea of Red not in digital?) 50% off sale, so we’re going to go slightly off the beaten path with our recommendations. If you’re looking for something specific, click through and it’s probably there. It’s a very deep sale.

The obligatory “front list” recommendation is the Saga Compendium. You should be familiar with Saga by now. Space fantasy about a refugee family who have both sides of a war looking for them? Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples? Yes, that Saga. Anyway, 54 issues for $23.99 is under $0.50 an issue and is as good a deal as you typically see from Image and it’s a wonderful series.

The Monolith is something we enjoyed when it came out from DC Comics back in the day. Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and the underappreciated Phil Winslade tell the tale of a troubled young woman who inherits a house and finds a golem walled up in the basement. Once freed, the golem goes back about its mission of vengeance and punishment, as golems are wont to do. The Monolith explores the consequences of this a bit.

Shock Rockets by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen was actually part of the far too short-lived Gorilla imprint at Image, back in the day. A very fun spin on the old anime theme of young pilots protecting the Earth from invading aliens.

Saga   The Monolith   shockrockets

Revival was a long running serial by Tim Seely and Mike Norton. It came out as zombie stories were getting hot, but it’s not really a zombie story. A town in Wisconsin has a strange day that sees the dead come back to life. Some of them seem perfectly normal. Some don’t. Naturally, the government declares a quarantine and the evangelists attempt to descend. This leaves the local sheriff’s department trying to figure out who or what caused the dead to rise and what’s happening to the dead afterwards. A bit of a slow burn as things continue to get stranger and bad things happen.

Criminal was Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips in their original crime series (or should we say crime series with no capes lurking in the background). Sometimes connected, sometimes not, we’d probably put V.6, “The Last of The Innocent” which is a whole lot like reimagining the Archie gang in a pulp noir. This is what Ed and Sean were doing just before they really blew up at Image and now Image has the publishing rights to it.

Casanova by Matt Fraction, Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon is a trippy as all get-out tale of a dimension hopping thief at odds with his other dimensional family of super-spies. Lots of backstabbing, identity theft and general skullduggery in a series that’s been compared to Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius. (Yes, that level of trippy.)

Revival   Criminal   Casanova

Dynamite Stuffs the Stocking

The Dynamite Holiday Sale runs through Monday, 1/2.

This is also a line-wide or near line-wide 50% off sale, so we’ll once more go a little deeper into the pile for our picks.

Flash Gordon Omnibus by Jeff Parker and Evan “Doc” Shaner. What makes this Flash Gordon better than some of the other versions? When Parker and Shaner are doing it, it’s just more fun!

Borderline by Carlos Trillo and Eduardo Risso is something Risso drew prior to 100 Bullets. It’s a dark tale of a reluctant government enforcer in a bleak dystopian world with mutants in wasteland and the rich sequestered away in luxury.

The Shadow: The Last Illusion by Cullen Bunn, Colton Worley and Giovanni Timpano finds The Shadow drawn into a conflict with a secret society of illusionists seeking “The Last Illusion.” And The Last Illusion is Harry Houdini’s escape from the land of the dead. This is one of the best Dynamite Shadow tales and really fits in next to the original pulps.

Flash Gordon   Borderline   The Shadow: The Last Illusion

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Still On Sale

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC’s Black Friday Sale = Lots of Batman and Recent $0.99 Single Issues

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’sDC’s Black Friday Sale! Better than normal discounts on collected editions – yes, lots of Batman – plus a lot of recent $0.99 single issues.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

Surprise! DC’s Black Friday Sale dropped while we were writing up Marvel’s (annual Black Friday) Epic Collection Sale – which you should absolutely have a look at – and we’ve been getting prodded to annotate DC’s, too.  So… DC today and then we’ll get back with the rest of the Black Friday sales on Black Friday… since sales are definitely starting to drop.

I See a Sale and I Want It Painted Black…

The DC Black Friday Sale runs through Monday, 11/28.

This sale is a mix of some more recent material and some classic material… and some of the prices are good. But let’s hit some highlights and then try to run down the single issue options, since those are buried at the bottom of the sale and most people don’t have kind of patience it takes to click that far down.

’80s Batman

Gosh, you think a DC Sale will have a lot of Batman?  Duh.

For 80s Batman, a primo deal is V. 1-6 of Batman: The Dark Detective (click and scroll down a little, you’ll see them). That’s the 80s Detective Comics run starting with Mike W. Barr / Alan Davis and continuing through the Alan Grant / Norm Breyfogle run. V. 3 includes the sequence by Batman screenwriter Sam Hamm and Denys Cowan. A really nice run for $3.99/$4.99 a pop.

Speaking of Sam Hamm, his Batman ’89 is the Two-Face story he would have done for the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton era Batman films, had the franchise not moved over to Joel Schumacher. Joe Quinones does the art. It’s on our “to read list,” but we haven’t gotten there yet, HOWEVER we would like to point out this was an August release and that awfully fast for DC to put the discounts on it. ($3.99)

For whatever reason, we don’t usually see the first volume of Batman and the Outsiders on sale. More often, it’s just V. 2 & 3 – which aren’t on sale this time, so go figure. This is #1-13 of the Mike W. Barr / Jim Aparo series, so if you’ve been curious, this is not a bad time to stick a toe in.

Batman: The Dark Knight Detective   Batman '89   Batman and the Outsiders

Current Batman

We think this is the first time the Josh Williamson run of Batman has been on sale (again, an August release for $3.99). You’ll also find the James Tynion 4.0 run at this link for $2.99/$3.99 if you scroll down a bit.

We’ve always loved the continuation of the animated series, but we love Batman: The Adventures Continue V.2 (Alan Burnett/Paul Dini/Rich Burchett/Ty Templeton) even more for $2.99! The Court of Owls enters the animated universe!

Is that a new volume of the Tom Taylor / Bruno Redondo Nightwing? Why yes, we think this is the first time V. 2 has been on sale and we know it’s a popular series with .cheap readers.

Batman: Abyss   Batman: The Adventures Continue   Nightwing

Recently On Sale

Not new, but not really that old, either. At least we’ve seen them on sale before.

Far Sector by N.K. Jemisin and Jamal Campbell was a jaw-dropping debut for Jemisin (who’s won just about every major Science Fiction/Fantasy prose award that comes to mind). A new Green Lantern with an experimental ring is off in a far corner of the galaxy and finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation on a world where murder hasn’t happened in centuries. Superior world building! 12 issues worth for $3.99

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? by Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber is an utter delight. One of the funniest comics DC has ever produced. Again, $3.99 for a 12-issue series is as good as it gets with DC.

The Nice House On the Lake by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez Bueno is a creepy SF/Horror genre bender (and more than a bit of a hit). A group of people are summoned to an isolated vacation home, only to witness the end of the world beginning outside their safe hideout. The mutual friend who invited them there… well, they have some questions about him. $2.99?!? Yeah, you can get it on the cheap right now.

Rorschach by Tom King and Jorge Fornés is a really odd creature. Set in the Watchman world, after the end of the book, it’s more about the mythology that has sprung up around Rorschach. It’s a mystery about political killings and muses about ideology and identity. It’s something of a unique book. While we were nervous picking up ANY non-Moore/Gibbons Watchmen title, we really enjoyed this one.

Swamp Thing by Ram V and Mike Perkins. This is the current run and we haven’t seen V.2 on sale before. The set up here finds Levi Kamei as the new Swamp Thing/Avatar of the Green. He’s not entirely sure what’s happened to him, but it might involve a corporation and it might involve his family. Interesting setup that has some echoes to The Anatomy Lesson as V. 2 nears its conclusion. Worth at look when it’s a rock bottom $2.99/volume.

Far Sector   Jimmy Olsen   Nice House on the Lake   Rorschach   Swamp Thing

Older Material At Good Prices

A couple ~20 issue/$5.99 volumes that are at a better price than we recall seeing lately:

Kamandi Jack Kirby’s take on Planet of the Apes, although that’s a reductionist description. Many, many years after The Great Disaster, the last boy on Earth navigates a strange wasteland of warring kingdoms of bipedal, talking evolved animals, where most humans are little more than livestock. An incredibly fun adventure book.

The Flash: Savage Velocity – this is the launch of the Wally West Flash era, post-Crisis. It contains the entire Mike Baron/Jackson Guice/Mike Collins run and the beginning of the William Messner-Loebs/Greg LaRocque run. (Yes, run is a pun.) Chunk! Red Trinity/Kapitalist Kouriers! Vandal Savage! Velocity 9!

Kamandi   The Flash

$0.99 Single Issues

This is going to be a little goofy for links, since you’re going to need to scroll down to the more recent issues on any of these pages, but you’ll get a good idea what’s out there. These are all fairly current issues… in the case of Batman,  January ’22 through August ’22.

 

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Still On Sale

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Ultimate Spider-Man; DC’s Golden and Silver Ages; Marvel Villains; Resident Alien

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel lowers prices on Ultimate Spider-Man and their villains; DC slashes the Golden and Silver Ages; Dark Horse discounts Resident Alien.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

The Eensy Weensy Bendis Sale

The Marvel Ultimate Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 11/21.

Yes, this essentially one very long Bendis-written run, broken up across two people wearing Spidey’s mask. And for the most part, its a very good run. This sale is easily broken into three parts:

  • Ultimate Spider-Man – essentially, the Peter Parker years. Mark Bagley is artist for most of the run. Skip the omnibus (too expensive for V.1-3 of these larger collections), get the regular editions.
  • Ultimate Comics Spider-Man – with art by Bagley, Pichelli, David Lafuente and Chris Samnee. It’s a relaunch, continuing the Parker years to the <spoilers>
  • Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Death of Spider-Man Fallout – with art by Bagley and Sara Pichelli. This is the transition to Miles Morales.

Ultimate Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Death of Spider-Man Fallout

The Naughty List

The Marvel Villains Sale runs through Monday, 11/21.

This is a potpourri mix of villain-centric titles, but it’s really a decent mix if you sift through it and there are a few things we definitely recommend, the top three of which are:

Doctor Doom by Christopher Cantwell and Salvador Larroca.  A fun and out of left field adventure that finds Doom framed for an at of international terrorism, deposed from the throne of Latveria, on the run and seeking revenge while engaging in an oddly bickering relationship with Kang the Conqueror.  Good comics!

M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games by Patton Oswalt, Jordan Blum and Scott Hepburn was another unexpected delight. You might be expect a farce with Oswald and Blum involved and it is a farce… sometimes. Other times it’s a fairly serious plot and flows between the two moods fluidly. M.O.D.O.K. is concerned he might be losing his mind. He’s seeing things. Like a wife and little M.O.D.O.K.s. And he’s trying to figure out what’s gone wrong and how to fix it, which will lead to encounters with Iron Man, Gwenpool and his maker.

And even further up the farce scale is Superior Foes of Spider-Man by Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber. Boomerang has got the gang back together and he’s looking for a big score. things go off the rails in the most entertaining ways…

(If you’re looking for something a bit more serious and enjoy 70s Marvel, you could a lot worse than Super-Villain Team-Up, which is essentially Doctor Doom and Namor butting heads for the bulk of the run.)

Doctor Doom   M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games   Superior Foes of Spider-Man

DC’s Other Metals

The DC Golden Age and Silver Age Sale runs through Monday, 11/21.

And by “Golden Age and Silver Age,” they really mean the reprints with that in the title. In general, these tend to be high page count volumes. They vary a little from volume to volume, but it’s usually good bang for your buck, particularly the lower priced editions.

There’s also a selection of $0.99 single issues mostly corresponding to the collected editions, but usually extending a little past what’s in the book versions. If you go to the single issues listing, you’ll see not everything is on sale, just sections.

So let’s break this down by title:

What’s good here? We’ve always thought Doom Patrol was one of DC’s stronger Silver Age offerings, and its hard to undersell the deep weirdness of the original Wonder Woman comics… but let’s talk about the some of those ’40s single issues, which have a slight different appeal. There’s that Alfred Bester Green Lantern.  Past that Detective Comics and Sensation Comics were originally anthologies, so if you dip into the single issues, there are other features in them. Depending on the exact issue, Detective will have The Crimson Avenger, Slam Bradley, The Boy Commandos (some of it by Simon & Kirby) and Airwave. Sensation will have Mr. Terrific, Wildcat, Black Pirate and Gay Ghost. You need to check the individual issues, because lineups swap and some of them only reprint the Batman or Wonder Woman lead.

Green Lantern   Detective   Sensation Comics

Let’s See That Passport

The Dark Horse Resident Alien Sale runs through Monday, 11/28.

This would be the Peter Hogan / Steve Parkhouse series about a stranded alien hiding out as a small-town doctor. It’s better known as a TV series on Syfy.

At $4.99, the Resident Alien Omnibus V.1 is a good deal. It collects the first three “regular” collected edition. Speaking of which, while they’re not yet in an omnibus, V.4-6 of the “regular” collections are also on sale for $4.99 to underscore that the omnibus is a good deal.  Single issues are $0.99.

Resident Alien

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Still On Sale

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Ant-Man, DC Pride, Jeff Lemire’s Dark Horse Titles

Recent additions to the Comixology (at Amazon) sales include – DC’s Pride sale with Hellblazer, The Invisibles and Snagglepus; Ant-Man from Marvel and Dark Horse’s Jeff Lemire catalog.

Tuesday’s look at the X-Factor and Mickey Mouse sales are also still in effect.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

You’d Think This Sale Would Be All Month

The DC Pride eBook Sale runs through Monday, 6/13.

It’s Pride month and DC’s curated a bit under 400 titles for this sale.  Let’s look at the lower priced options first.

It’s always a good time for Hellblazerwith many of the earlier volumes going for $5.99. Hellblazer was consistently entertaining over it’s original run, too. (We also can’t say enough good things about the most recent series.)

Completely at $5.99/volume, you’ve also got Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles an ancient secret society that advances humanity through anarchy (read: freedom) clashes with the forces of order (read: the aristocracy); i.e. an urban fantasy about sticking it to The Man. All kinds of artists you’ll recognize on this: Steve Yeowell, Jill Thompson, Phil Jimenez, Chris Weston… even early Ivan Reis.

But perhaps the most Pride Month book of the lot is Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles. And an unusual book it is. Mark Russell and Mike Freehan recast Snagglepuss as Tennessee Williams-esque playwright in 1950s NYC. The House Unamerican Activities Committee is trolling showbiz for subversives and communists. Snagglepuss is not without his enemies and being gay only puts a bigger target on his back. Yes, Snagglepuss as a dark social and political satire. And it’s good! Worth it for the Dorothy Parker bits, alone.

Hellblazer   The Invisibles   Snagglepuss

What Did the Pink Panther Say To The Ant?

The Marvel Ant-Man Sale runs through Monday, 6/13.

Since there are multiple formats for much of this, we’re going to walk through the highlights in the cheapest formats (which means omnibus, if available).

Ant-Man/Giant-Man Masterworks is one of the occasions we’ll give Masterworks a nod over Epics. In this case, the Epic is a higher price point and isn’t complete. We will caution you that this wasn’t one of Marvel’s better known Silver Age strips for a reason, but you get Stan Lee, Larry Leiber, Jack Kirby, Don Heck, Dick Ayers, Carl Burgos and Bob Powell.  Still, it’s the Hank Pym run.

Ant-Man: Scott Lang is a compilation book of the early appearances of Scott Lang in the Ant-Man suit. i.e., Lang before Lang became more of a comedy character. This is a relatively David Michelinie-driven volume with the solo 2-parter in Marvel Premiere, an Avengers arc and an Iron Man arc.

Irredeemable Ant-Man is the Robert Kirkman / Phil Hester run with Eric O’Grady finding the Ant-Man suit. At this point, O’Grady’s an unethical SHIELD agent playing both sides against the middle and it’s a bit of a farce. And this is where Ant-Man starts being played as an action comedy. Something that’s still largely the case.

The Astonishing Ant-Man: The Complete Collection is the omnibus for the Nick Spencer era, with art by Ramon Rosanas, Anapaolo Martello and Brent Schoonover. This is where Ant-Man is reset closer to the films as more of an action-farce. Scott Lang has worse luck than Peter Parker and he tries to get his life together, get a job and start co-parenting his daughter… but things are seldom that easy.

Ant-Man: World Hive by new Spidey scribe Zeb Wells and Dylan Burnett finds Scott Lang forced to team up with Swarm. Yes, a Nazi scientist with a body made up of bees. There’s an honest-to-goodness invasion/conspiracy to create an insect uprising and he’s having the hardest time getting the Avengers… or Spidey… or even Black Cat to take him seriously. We particularly enjoyed this one.

Ant-Man Masterworks      Ant-Man: World Hive

Another Jeff (Collect Them All)

The Dark Horse Jeff Lemire Sale runs through Monday, 6.13.

As you might expect, this is dominated by the Black Hammer franchise, a superhero universe devised by Lemire and Dean Ormston.

The Black Hammer is the core series/story by Lemire and (mostly) Ormston.

The World of Black Hammer is the umbrella title for a series of mini-series that flesh out some of the characters and other corners of this universe. Lemire scripts and all sorts of artists pop up.

Note: the Library Editions tend to be a little more expensive than the regular volumes in digital and this sale.

And since Jeff Lemire is very capable of doing the illustrations himself, here are the single issues for Mazebooka recently completed urban fantasy series where Lemire did what we like to call “The Full Cartoonist.”

Black Hammer   Unbelievable Teens   Mazebook

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Still On Sale

Comixology Sales: Batman, Conan, GI Joe and where the new sale pages are

This week in Comixology Sales… can we still all it Comixology? Well, the logo’s still on the Amazon page. Anyway, we have a look at some discounts on Batman, Conan and GI Joe… plus some advice on navigating the new Amazon page.

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn commissions)

We’re not sure how this whole “Comixology on Amazon” thing is going to go. We surely were not happy with the churlish and authoritarian forced updates to the app, so you’re not going to hear us complaining if you’re giving Amazon a “time out” over this — we sure did.

The format may get tweaked a little, but then again you’d expect that with the applecart getting upset. We’ll give it a try and see how it goes.

First things first, some navigational bits. We’ve been hearing a lot of complaints about the UIX, so here’s a cheat sheet for you.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

The new releases page is here. Bookmark it if you’ve been having trouble finding it.  You’re going to want to scroll down to the bottom of the page the see the real/full new releases. It’s similar, but perhaps a bit clunkier, than the old Comixology setup.  You can filter for major/mid-major publishers only.  Basically, the top list of filter options from the old version.

Since we know the Comixology folks read this – Comixology needs to consider AT MINIMUM adding an alphabetical sort to that new releases window. It isn’t clear what determines the order things are displayed in, but it comes off as haphazard and a lot more painful to use. You’re not doing your reputation any favors with the current state of things. We’d probably also add an option to display content in blocks by publisher… that might be overkill, but a lot of folks would use that.  (We’re so old, we remember when Amazon cared about customer opinions.)

The “Comics Deals” page is here. That’s the page for what’s on sale. Again, bookmark it if you’ve been having trouble finding it. We’re not sure about the rhythm of the updates yet – we were giving Amazon a time out. It isn’t clear the update pattern will exactly match the old Comixology site. Time will tell.  History suggests that ALL the sales may not turn up on the deals page and may start prior to showing up on the deals page, so… stay vigilant?

Something that made us laugh

Amazon/Comixology now has a “Graphic Novels” page. Maybe someone will come to their sense and fix this before you click, but right now we’re seeing X-Men #9, Saga #56, Batman #121 — which is to say, Comixology gets absorbed by Amazon and suddenly they can’t tell the difference between a single issue and a graphic novel.  Not inspiring much confidence there, sport!

So… anyway, what’s on sale right now that might be interesting?

Dark thoughts need a Dark Knight

There’s a Batman sale running through Monday, the 14th.

Yeah, it’s going to be a pain to click through 200+ pages, since Amazon doesn’t seem to have a grid display option for the complete sale, just their highlights.

What’s good?  $2.99 for Batman:Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli is a great value.

Call us crazy (you wouldn’t be the first), but we thought Batman: Universe by Brian Bendis and Nick Derington was a really fun ride. It’s a nice tour of the DCU, the snarkfest of Bruce’s and Alfred’s conversation is top notch and you don’t see the “fun” version of Batman that often. It’s just well done.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat V. 1 is the tail end of the Alan Grant / Norm Breyfogle era of Batman… and also comes with some Tim Sale art, which is never a bad thing. At $4.99, it’s the most cost effective entry in that era (which is well worth your time).

Batman: Year One   Batman Universe   Batman: Shadow of the Bat

The Cheap Barbarian

Marvel’s Conan Sale runs through Sunday, 3/6.

Conan, possibly because it’s a licensed property, doesn’t seem like it’s on sale as much as other titles, so it might be worth some attention if you’re barbarian friendly.

We’d put this in three buckets:

  1. The original Marvel run of Conan The Barbarian by Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith, John Buscema and friends. This is conveniently available in Epic Collections. It is a classic and one of the most popular titles of its time.
  2. The Dark Horse “Conan Chronicles— also conveniently available in Epic Collections (some of the most recent material in Epic format, too?). We’re particularly fond of the early Kurt Busiek / Card Nord run.
  3. Savage Avengers by Gerry Duggan and Patrick Zircher (as the primary artist). OK, we had to be coaxed into this one, too. Conan, Venom, The Punisher, Elektra and Doctor Voodoo questing after Kulan Gath. “Savage Defenders” might be a more apt name for it, because it really reminded me of what you’d get if Conan was running the old “non-team,” instead of Nighthawk or Doctor Strange. Except more over the top and macho. A comic that’s entertaining, while not taking itself completely seriously… and you’ll know by the description if it’s for you.

Conan the Barbarian   Conan Chronicles   Savage Avengers

The Discount Egress

The IDW GI Joe Sale runs through Thursday, 3/24.

We bring this one up because the GI Joe license is going to be leaving IDW at the end of the year. Depending on the roll-out at the new publisher, that means some of the material might not be in digital for awhile. So if you’re interested in it, now is a good time to get current with that interest.

We’d say go with the Larry Hama run. (Which continues here.)

GI Joe

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